


023 "awesome"

by wheel_pen



Series: Iron Man AU [23]
Category: Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fish out of Water, My Pepper is different, Pre-Iron Man, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755348
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wheel_pen/pseuds/wheel_pen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Pepper are rocking out one day when that buzzkill Obadiah butts in to insist that Tony clarify one of his designs. Tony takes the request in stride, fulfilling it in his usual brilliant, obnoxious manner. "Dude, I just invented a new branch of mathematics, that's what I did!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	023 "awesome"

**Author's Note:**

> 1) My Pepper is very different from canon Pepper. Her personality/origin is very different; to separate her from canon Pepper I've given her a new last name and a different hair color.
> 
> 2) The bad words are censored. That's just how I do things.
> 
> 3) Stories are numbered in the order I wrote them, which isn't necessarily the order in which they occur. At some point I'll post a timeline.
> 
> I wrote this series after the first Iron Man movie came out. It's very AU but I hope you'll enjoy it anyway. I own nothing and appreciate the chance to play with these characters.

            We will now pause for an interlude in which I am awesome.

            So one day Pepper and I were really rocking out at home. I don't mean that in a dirty way. I mean it in a fun, hilarious, fantastic way. We were playing all the classics—Queen, the Stones, Green Day, Offspring, some more obscure stuff—with the volume turned all the way up (to 11, if you will), and we were just—dancing. I mean, the windows were literally rattling, not that the neighbors could hear us because, well, there _were_ no neighbors, really, and anyway the place was soundproofed. And we were just dancing, looking like fools, no doubt, and laughing like loons—well, _I_ was. Pepper didn't laugh, but she was smiling a lot. We were partying _hard_ —I was down to my tank top and Pepper had consented to remove her suit-jacket and (literally) let her hair down—so that just tells you how much she was enjoying it.

            So we were dancing and having a good time, and I admit I was a _little_ bit tipsy, but mostly it was natural endorphins—I was just friggin' _happy_. It had been a really long time since I was _that_ happy (without chemical assistance).

            And then all of a sudden the music stopped.

            Pepper and I looked over and there was Obadiah standing in the doorway, hands on his hips, a roll of blueprints sticking out from his fist at a funny angle. He just looked so _stern_ standing there, and also vaguely shocked, that I burst into laughter. Even killing the music couldn't bring me down.

            "I was just thinking of the last time I caught you doing this," he remarked, in a voice that was a little nicer than usual, "when you were a little punk blasting the stereo in your folks' basement. Except there were no girls there," he added dryly, looking at Pepper. Then he looked at the cluttered coffee table. "And the beer was a lot cheaper."

            I snickered at that. I had been a skinny little dork when I was a kid, that's for sure. I say that with great affection, by the way.

            "You didn't come to bust us, did you, Obie?" I laughed, stumbling dizzily towards my beer on the table. Dancing was thirsty work.

            "Are you stoned again, too?" he asked, back to his usual not-so-nice voice.

            "Dude, we were _head-banging_ ," I pointed out. "The brain-case is a little rattled."

            Obadiah rolled his eyes, clearly not believing me. "Has he been smoking anything?" he demanded of Pepper.

            "Mr. Stark doesn't smoke," she responded primly. "Can we have the music back, please?" she asked, turning to me.

            "Sure, baby!" I reached for the button on the stereo, but before more than a couple notes had blared, Obadiah paused it again with the remote he'd found.

            "Perhaps, before you return to your partying, you would like to take a look at these plans for a nice, shiny weapon?" he suggested, heavy on the sarcasm.

            "Well, for a nice, shiny weapon… okay," I agreed. "You can turn the music back on," I told Pepper, "but turn it down." She frowned at me. Only loud music was good music in Pepper's world. 

            Obadiah pushed some beer bottles out of the way and unrolled the blueprints on the coffee table. "Now, the design boys have been working on one of your brilliant, revolutionary concepts," he began—again with the sarcasm!—"filling in those pesky little details that you don't like to think about. And they've run into a problem."

            "What problem is that?" I asked, studying the plans.

            "No branch of mathematics exists to do what you want them to do," he finished dryly.

            I shook my head over the shortsightedness of some people and took the pencil he offered me. "You know, I _do_ think about the details," I told him, adding to the sketch on the table. "I think about them a _lot_. I just don't like to micromanage people. I figured they'd come up with this themselves." Pepper was still standing in the middle of the room, twitching slightly like an idle video game character. "Hostess," I summoned, holding up a hand.

            "Would you like a beer, Mr. Stane?" she offered politely, walking over. "Or a canapé?"

            "Thanks," said Obadiah dubiously, taking a cracker from the plate she held out. I leaned over and grabbed a couple, too—dancing used a lot of energy, you know. "Tony!" he protested like a whiny old person, "you're getting caviar on the blueprints!"

            "Stop being so anal," I advised, finishing my sketch.

            He did not seem pleased with it. "Tony, there's _no way_ to accurately calculate this—"

            "Please," I scoffed, beginning to scribble in a blank spot on the paper. "It's simple. You just take the cosine of the total thrust and divide it by—oh, hey, turn that up!"

            Pepper happily upped the stereo volume on the song that had just come on.

            "Tony," Obadiah prompted, "divide by _what_?"

            I shushed him. "Watch this. It's really funny. Pepper, do the dance—remember, like we saw in Hawaii?" I waved my arms to the side to demonstrate the hula, which went perfectly with the ukulele opener of this song.

            Pepper proceeded to do her interpretation of the hula, which I very much enjoyed. Obadiah stared, looking slightly horrified. "It's like—watching the robots at the Tiki Room at Disneyland," he decided.

            "I know!" I laughed. "Isn't she fantastic?"

            Obadiah shook himself free of the spell cast by Pepper's twitching arms and hips and tried to regain my attention. "Tony. Divided by what?"

            Instead of taking the pencil again I hopped up from the couch to join Pepper. "Here it comes!" Right at the one minute mark the song changed from simple ukulele to crashing full rock band. Obadiah winced and Pepper and I started jamming.

            Until the music was cut off again.

            "Tony," Obadiah persisted. "The cosine of the total thrust divided by _what_?"

            I sighed at his uncoolness, grabbed the blueprints and pencil, and made Pepper turn around so I could write against her back. After a few seconds I tossed the plans and the pencil back over my shoulder and cranked the music again.

            Obadiah gathered up the crumpled sheets. "Tony!" His head was getting very red now. "You just—" He started to really look at what I'd written, and his tone changed from exasperation to amazement. "You just—"

            "Dude, I just invented a new branch of mathematics, _that's_ what I did!" I declared smugly. "Anything else I can help you with?"

            He rolled the plans back up. "No, that's all, thank you. I'd better get these back to the office."

            "You can stay and party with us, Obie," I offered, somewhat sincerely. As much trouble as I gave him, I _did_ have a lot of fond memories with Obadiah (current note: puke!). "I know you're a rockin' dude."

            "Thanks," he replied dryly, "but no." He turned to leave. "Oh, Tony?" I looked back up from Pepper's strange, bird-inspired new dance. "Please, no more head-banging, okay? Don't want you to damage anything." I just laughed and turned the music up even louder.

 

            We now return to your regularly scheduled story.

* * *


End file.
